The federal government and the U.S. Army have been readying for domestic unrest for decades, and preparations are accelerating exponentially

The establishment media’s reaction to the upcoming Jade Helm military exercise has characterized concerns about the drill as being founded in nothing more than “right-wing paranoia,” but the exhaustive history of how the federal government and the U.S. Army have made preparations for martial law in America is beyond denial.

The drill stoked concerns after Texas and Utah were labeled “hostile” territory in documents related to the exercise. However, when Infowars drew attention to the issue, numerous mainstream news outlets reacted by regurgitating Army talking points about how the drill was solely focused on preparing U.S. troops for overseas missions. Those same outlets also demonized anyone who questioned that narrative as engaging in alarmism and paranoia.

The history of the federal government and the U.S. military’s preparations for martial law in America is manifestly provable. That is not to say that a military takeover is imminent, but to dismiss the militarization of law enforcement and verifiable plans for using troops to deal with domestic unrest as “alarmist” or mere “conspiracy theory” is completely erroneous.

Despite assurances by the Army that Jade Helm is to prepare troops for overseas missions, Army documents in the past have made clear that plans for martial law are in place for within the Continental United States (CONUS).

As we exhaustively documented, the training manual explicitly states in numerous places that these programs are for both overseas and domestically “within the United States or U.S. territories during civil support operations”.

– In 2009 it was revealed how the National Guard posted a number of job listings looking for “Internment/Resettlement Specialists” to work in “civilian internee camps” within the United States.

– Jade Helm has also drawn comparisons to a 2012 scenario outlined by retired Army colonel Kevin Benson, in which the U.S. Military is used to crush an insurgent rebellion overseen by Tea Party militia members who take over the city of Darlington, South Carolina.

Preparations for using troops to deal with mass civil unrest on U.S. soil, in addition to interning American citizens, have been in the works for decades.

– In the late 1990′s Alex Jones attended numerous urban warfare training drills where U.S. troops were trained to raid, arrest and imprison U.S. citizens in detention camps as well as taking over public buildings and running checkpoints. During role playing exercises, actors playing prisoners would scream “I’m an American citizen, I have rights” as they were being dragged away by troops.

– In 1999, San Antonio Chief of Police Al Philipus told Alex Jones that officials tried to bribe him to allow Army Delta Force to conduct training exercises in the town which had caused consternation amongst residents in other areas of Texas. “Offers were made to give money, cash money to elected officials’ charities if they could get us to change our minds. As one of my deputy chiefs said, in some circles, that’s called bribery,” said Philipus.

– In 2006 we exclusively exposed a nationwide FEMA program which was training pastors and other religious representatives to become secret police enforcers who teach their congregations to “obey the government” in preparation for a declaration of martial law, property and firearm seizures, and forced relocation. Over a year later, a KSLA news report confirmed that that Clergy Response Teams are being trained by the federal government to “quell dissent” and pacify citizens to obey the government in the event of a declaration of martial law.

– Back in 2008, U.S. troops returning from Iraq were earmarked for “homeland patrols” with one of their roles including helping with “civil unrest and crowd control”.

– In December 2008, the Washington Post reported on plans to station 20,000 more U.S. troops inside America for purposes of “domestic security” from September 2011 onwards, an expansion of Northcom’s militarization of the country in preparation for potential civil unrest following a total economic collapse or a mass terror attack.

– A report produced that same year by the U.S. Army War College’s Strategic Institute warned that the United States may experience massive civil unrest in the wake of a series of crises which it termed “strategic shock.”

“Widespread civil violence inside the United States would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend basic domestic order and human security,” stated the report, authored by [Ret.] Lt. Col. Nathan Freir, adding that the military may be needed to quell “purposeful domestic resistance”.

– In an article published in the May/June 2012 issue of Foreign Affairs, the mouthpiece for the influential Council on Foreign Relations, Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, General Raymond T. Odierno, advocated the army be “transitioned” into a more “flexible force” by deploying in situations normally reserved for domestic law enforcement officials. He argued that by doing so, troops will be better equipped to deal with conflict elsewhere.

– A February 2013 Department of Defense instruction altered the US code applying to the military’s involvement in domestic law enforcement by allowing US troops to quell “civil disturbances” domestically without any Presidential authorization, greasing the skids for a de facto military coup in America along with the wholesale abolition of Posse Comitatus.

– Rex 84, short for Readiness Exercise 1984, was established under the pretext of a “mass exodus” of illegal aliens crossing the Mexican/US border. During the Iran-Contra hearings in 1987, however, it was revealed that the program was a secretive “scenario and drill” developed by the federal government to suspend the Constitution, declare martial law, assign military commanders to take over state and local governments, and detain large numbers of American citizens determined by the government to be “national security threats.”

– In December 2011 it was revealed that Halliburton subsidiary KBR was seeking sub-contractors to staff and outfit “emergency environment” camps located in five regions of the United States. In 2006, KBR was contracted by Homeland Security to build detention centers designed to deal with “an emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S,” or the rapid development of unspecified “new programs” that would require large numbers of people to be interned.

While preparations for martial law continued behind the scenes, the Department of Homeland Security was busy characterizing conservatives and libertarians as domestic extremists or even terrorists.

– A study which leaked in 2012 that was funded by the Department of Homeland Security characterized Americans who are “suspicious of centralized federal authority,” and “reverent of individual liberty” as “extreme right-wing” terrorists.

– The infamous 2009 MIAC report, published by the Missouri Information Analysis Center and first revealed by Infowars, framed Ron Paul supporters, libertarians, people who display bumper stickers, people who own gold, or even people who fly a U.S. flag, as potential terrorists.

– Over the last eight years, the DHS has also released a series of videos to promote the See Something, Say Something campaign in which almost all of the terrorists portrayed in the PSAs were white Americans.

– Police departments across the country have also identified returning veterans as a major domestic terror threat and are “armed for war” to combat them with military-style vehicles and weaponry.

– An April 2009 DHS intelligence assessment listed returning vets as likely domestic terrorists. Just a month later, the New York Times reported on how Boy Scout Explorers were being trained by the DHS to kill “disgruntled Iraq war veterans” in terrorist drills.

– During a New Hampshire city council meeting in 2013, former Marine Corps Colonel Peter Martino, who was stationed in Fallujah and trained Iraqi soldiers, asserted that the Department of Homeland Security was working with law enforcement to build a “domestic army,” because the federal government is afraid of its own citizens. Martino was responding to the city’s Police Chief, who justified the necessity for the acquisition of an armored ‘Bearcat’ vehicle by citing the “threat” posed by libertarians, sovereign citizen adherents, and Occupy activists in the region.

In 2013, former Navy SEAL Ben Smith warned that the Obama administration is asking top brass in the military if they would be comfortable with disarming U.S. citizens, a litmus test that includes gauging whether they would be prepared to order NCOs to fire on Americans.

The sight of U.S. troops, National Guard, military vehicles and helicopters patrolling residential areas in America is becoming normalized as a result of urban warfare training drills like Jade Helm.

– In 2012, a photo showing fully armed U.S. National Guard troops patrolling a quiet residential street in Crookston, Minnesota went viral. Guard troops from the local Crookston Armory routinely take part in off-base exercises which train the local population to accept the sight of armed soldiers patrolling their neighborhoods as normal.

– A May 2012 joint drill between military and police in South Florida involving troops storming a building in the middle of the night, unannounced to local residents, was characterized by local media coverage not as a frightening example of how Americans are being acclimatized to accept a state of martial law but as a ‘cool tourist story’.

– During a 2012 U.S. Army exercise, St Louis City residents were told not be alarmed at the sight of U.S. Army tanks rolling down residential neighborhoods after sightings of the vehicles provoked fears of martial law. Local news media channels featured interviews with residents who praised the sight of troops on the streets as a valuable crime-fighting tool similar to that used in foreign countries.

– Last year we reported on how the U.S. Army has built a 300 acre ‘fake city’ in Virginia complete with a sports stadium, bank, school, and an underground subway in order to train for unspecified future combat scenarios. As the Telegraph reported, “The subway carriages even carry the same logo as the carriages in Washington DC,” suggesting that the site was built to double both as a foreign city and a mock domestic town.

– Alarmed residents who reported low-flying black helicopters with their lights turned off buzzing downtown Dallas last December were witnessing U.S. Special Forces drills intended to allow troops to get a feel for “realistic urban sites”. The maneuvers were part of preparedness training for U.S. Special Operations Forces.

– As preparations for martial law continue, the DHS, the Army and other federal agencies have been acquiring huge amounts of riot gear in preparation for “public demonstration(s)” and “civil disturbances”.

– Weeks before the Mike Brown shooting that sparked the Ferguson riots, we reported on a promotional video touting FEMA’s emergency response capabilities which showed U.S. Army and National Guard troops training to detain unruly African-American citizens in prison camps before handing them over to police.

– Despite innumerable indications that the federal government is making preparations for riots, the Department of Homeland Security denied last year that it was gearing up for domestic disorder. In 2011, DHS chief Janet Napolitano directed ICE to prepare for a mass influx of immigrants into the United States, calling for the plan to deal with the “shelter” and “processing” of large numbers of people.

As the deluge of evidence presented in this article clearly demonstrates, the notion that the U.S. Army and the federal government do not at least have plans in place to deal with civil unrest in America is beyond naive.

Training exercises like Jade Helm are clearly designed to be dual purpose in nature, both for overseas combat and for the potential that martial law may be declared domestically in the aftermath of a massive economic collapse or other national emergency.